Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth – formally, the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, after 1791, the Commonwealth of Poland – was a dual state, a bi-confederation of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch, both King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. It was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th– to 17th-century Europe. At its largest territorial extent, in the early 17th century, the Commonwealth covered 400,000 square miles and sustained a multi-ethnic population of 11 million; the Commonwealth was established by the Union of Lublin in July 1569, but the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been in a de facto personal union since 1386 with the marriage of the Polish queen Hedwig and Lithuania's Grand Duke Jogaila, crowned King jure uxoris Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland. The First Partition of Poland in 1772 and the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 reduced the state's size and the Commonwealth collapsed as an independent state following the Third Partition of Poland in 1795.
The Union possessed many features unique among contemporary states. Its political system was characterized by strict checks upon monarchical power; these checks were enacted by a legislature controlled by the nobility. This idiosyncratic system was a precursor to modern concepts of democracy, constitutional monarchy, federation. Although the two component states of the Commonwealth were formally equal, Poland was the dominant partner in the union; the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was marked by high levels of ethnic diversity and by relative religious tolerance, guaranteed by the Warsaw Confederation Act 1573. The Constitution of 1791 acknowledged Catholicism as the "dominant religion", unlike the Warsaw Confederation, but freedom of religion was still granted with it. After several decades of prosperity, it entered a period of protracted political and economic decline, its growing weakness led to its partitioning among its neighbors during the late 18th century. Shortly before its demise, the Commonwealth adopted a massive reform effort and enacted the May 3 Constitution—the first codified constitution in modern European history and the second in modern world history.
The official name of the state was The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Latin term was used in international treaties and diplomacy. In the 17th century and it was known as the Most Serene Commonwealth of Poland, the Commonwealth of the Polish Kingdom, or the Commonwealth of Poland, its inhabitants referred to it in everyday speech as the "Rzeczpospolita". Western Europeans simply called it Poland and in most past and modern sources it is referred to as the Kingdom of Poland, or just Poland; the terms: the Commonwealth of Poland and the Commonwealth of Two Nations were used in the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations. The English term'Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth' and German'Polen-Litauen' are seen as renderings of the Commonwealth of Two Nations variant. Other names include the Republic of Nobles and the First Commonwealth, the latter common in Polish historiography. Poland and Lithuania underwent an alternating series of wars and alliances during the 14th century and early 15th century.
Several agreements between the two were struck before the permanent 1569 Union of Lublin. This agreement was one of the signal achievements of Sigismund II Augustus, last monarch of the Jagiellon dynasty. Sigismund believed, his death in 1572 was followed by a three-year interregnum during which adjustments were made to the constitutional system. The Commonwealth reached its Golden Age in the early 17th century, its powerful parliament was dominated by nobles who were reluctant to get involved in the Thirty Years' War. The Commonwealth was able to hold its own against Sweden, the Tsardom of Russia, vassals of the Ottoman Empire, launched successful expansionist offensives against its neighbors. In several invasions during the Time of Troubles, Commonwealth troops entered Russia and managed to take Moscow and hold it from 27 September 1610 to 4 November 1612, when they were driven out after a siege. Commonwealth power began waning after a series of blows during the following decades. A major rebellion of Ukrainian Cossacks in the southeastern portion of the Commonwealth began in 1648.
It resulted in a Ukrainian request, under the terms of the Treaty of Pereyaslav, for protection by the Russian Tsar. Russian annexation of part of Ukraine supplanted Polish influence; the other blow to the Commonwealth was a Swedish invasion in 1655, known as the Deluge, supported by troops of Transylvanian Duke George II Rákóczi a
Mehmed IV
Mehmed IV was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1648 to 1687. He came to the throne at the age of six. Mehmed went on to become the second longest reigning sultan in Ottoman history after Suleiman the Magnificent. While the first and last years of his reign were characterized by military defeat and political instability, during his middle years he oversaw the revival of the empire's fortunes associated with the Köprülü era. Mehmed IV was known by contemporaries as a pious ruler, was referred to as gazi, or "holy warrior" for his role in the many conquests carried out during his long reign. Under his reign the empire reached the height of its territorial expansion in Europe. From a young age he developed a keen interest in hunting, for which he is known as avcı. In 1687 Mehmed was overthrown by soldiers disenchanted by the course of the ongoing War of the Holy League, he subsequently retired to Edirne, where he resided until his natural death in 1693. Born at Topkapı Palace, Constantinople, in 1642, Mehmed was the son of Sultan Ibrahim by Valide Sultan Turhan Hatice, a concubine of either Russian or Ukrainian origin, the grandson of Kösem Sultan of Greek origin.
Soon after his birth, his father and mother quarreled, Ibrahim was so enraged that he tore Mehmed from his mother's arms and flung the infant into a cistern. Mehmed was rescued by the harem servants. However, this left Mehmed with a lifelong scar on his head. Mehmed ascended to the throne in 1648 at the age of six, during a volatile time for the Ottoman dynasty; the empire faced palace intrigues as well as uprisings in Anatolia, the defeat of the Ottoman navy by the Venetians outside the Dardanelles, food shortages leading to riots in Constantinople. It was under these circumstances that Mehmed's mother granted Köprülü Mehmed Pasha full executive powers as Grand Vizier. Köprülü took office on 14 September 1656. Mehmed IV presided over an exceptionally stable period of Ottoman history. Mehmed is known as Avcı, "the Hunter". Mehmed's reign is notable for a revival of Ottoman fortunes led by the Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed and his son Fazıl Ahmed, they regained the Aegean islands from Venice, Crete, during the Cretan War.
They fought successful campaigns against Transylvania and Poland. When Mehmed IV accepted the vassalage of Petro Doroshenko, Ottoman rule extended into Podolia and Right-bank Ukraine, his next vizier, Köprülü Mehmed's adopted son Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa, led campaigns against Russia, conquering Chyhyryn in 1678. He next supported the 1683 Hungarian uprising of Imre Thököly against Austrian rule, marching a vast army through Hungary and besieged Vienna. At the Battle of Vienna on the Kahlenberg Heights, the Ottomans suffered a catastrophic rout by Polish-Lithuanian forces famously led by King John III Sobieski, his allies, notably the Imperial army. On 12 September 1683 the Austrians and their Polish allies under King John III Sobieski took advantage of dissent within the Turkish military command and poor disposition of his troops, winning the Battle of Vienna with a devastating flank attack led by Sobieski's Polish cavalry; the Turks retreated into Hungary, however this was only the beginning of the Great Turkish War, as the armies of the Holy League began their successful campaign to push the Ottomans back to the Balkans.
After the second Battle of Mohács, the Ottoman Empire fell into deep crisis. There was a mutiny among the Ottoman troops; the commander and Grand Vizier, Sarı Süleyman Pasha, became frightened that he would be killed by his own troops and fled from his command, first to Belgrade and to Istanbul. When the news of the defeat and the mutiny arrived in Istanbul in early September, Abaza Siyavuş Pasha was appointed as the commander and soon afterward as the Grand Vizier. However, before he could take over his command, the whole Ottoman Army had disintegrated and the Ottoman household troops started to return to their base in Istanbul under their own lower-rank officers. Sarı Süleyman Pasha was executed, Sultan Mehmed IV appointed the commander of Istanbul Straits, Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasha, as the Grand Vizier's regent in Istanbul. Fazıl Mustafa made consultations with the leaders of the army that existed and the other leading Ottoman statesmen. After these, on 8 November 1687 it was decided to depose Sultan Mehmed IV and to enthrone his brother Suleiman II as the new Sultan.
Mehmed was deposed by the combined forces of Yeğen Osman and the Janissaries. Mehmed was imprisoned in Topkapı Palace. However, he was permitted to leave the Palace from time to time, as he died in Edirne Palace in 1693, he was buried near his mother's mosque in Constantinople. In 1691, a couple of years before his death, a plot was discovered in which the senior clerics of the empire planned to reinstate Mehmed on the throne in response to the ill health and imminent death of his successor, Suleiman II, his favourite harem girl was Emetullah Rabia Gülnuş Sultan, a slave girl and his wife. She was taken prisoner at Rethymno on the island of Crete, their two sons, Mustafa II and Ahmed III, became Ottoman Sultans during 1695–1703 and 1703–1730 respectively. ConsortsMehmed had three consorts: Gülnuş Sultan.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire known as Imperial Russia or Russia, was an empire that existed across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917. The third largest empire in world history, at its greatest extent stretching over three continents, Europe and North America, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires; the rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighboring rival powers: the Golden Horde, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. It played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south; the House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov ruled from 1762. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean, into Alaska and Northern California in America on the east.
With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics and religion. There were numerous dissident elements. Economically, the empire had a predominantly agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs, Russian peasants; the economy industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways and factories. The land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that emerged, he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, laid the foundations of the Russian state. Emperor Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an huge empire into a major European power, he moved the capital from Moscow to the new model city of St. Petersburg, led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political mores with a modern, Europe-oriented, rationalist system.
Empress Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. Emperor Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861, his policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. That connection by 1914 led to Russia's entry into the First World War on the side of France, the United Kingdom, Serbia, against the German and Ottoman empires; the Russian Empire functioned as an absolute monarchy on principles of Orthodoxy and Nationality until the Revolution of 1905 and became a de jure constitutional monarchy. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917 as a result of massive failures in its participation in the First World War. Though the Empire was only proclaimed by Tsar Peter I following the Treaty of Nystad, some historians would argue that it was born either when Ivan III of Russia conquered Veliky Novgorod in 1478, or when Ivan the Terrible conquered the Khanate of Kazan in 1552. According to another point of view, the term Tsardom, used after the coronation of Ivan IV in 1547, was a contemporary Russian word for empire.
Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonization of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the Russo-Polish War that incorporated left-bank Ukraine, the Russian conquest of Siberia. Poland was divided in the 1790 -- 1815 era, with much of the population going to Russia. Most of the 19th-century growth came from adding territory in Asia, south of Siberia. Peter I the Great played a major role in introducing Russia to the European state system. While the vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns; the class of kholops, close in status to slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation. Russian agricultural kholops were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. Peter's first military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Turks.
His attention turned to the North. Peter still lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Archangel on the White Sea, where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year. Access to the Baltic was blocked by Sweden. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him to make a secret alliance in 1699 with Saxony, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Denmark against Sweden, resulting in the Great Northern War; the war ended in 1721. Peter acquired four provinces situated east of the Gulf of Finland; the coveted access to the sea was now secured. There he built Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg, to replace Moscow, which had long been Russia's cultural center. In 1722, he tur
Şermi Kadın
Şermi Kadın (Ottoman Turkish: شرمی قادین. On 20 March 1725 she gave birth to her only son Şehzade Abdul Hamid. In 1728, when he was three she commissioned a fountain in Üsküdar. Ahmed was deposed in 1730, his nephew Mahmud I ascended the throne. Şermi along with other ladies of Ahmed's harem went at Beyazıt Square. She died in 1732, was buried in the mausoleum of imperial ladies, in the New Mosque in Istanbul. Abdul Hamid ascended the throne in 1774 after the death of his elder half brother Mustafa III. However, she was never Valide Sultan, as she had died forty two years before Abdul Hamid ascended the throne, he created the Beylerbeyi Mosque in memory of his mother. Ottoman Empire Ottoman dynasty Ottoman family tree List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire Line of succession to the Ottoman throne Ottoman Emperors family tree List of consorts of the Ottoman Sultans
Ahmed III
Ahmed III was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and a son of Sultan Mehmed IV. His mother was Gülnuş Sultan named Evmania Voria, an ethnic Greek, he was born in Dobruja. He succeeded to the throne in 1703 on the abdication of his brother Mustafa II. Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha and the Sultan's daughter, Fatma Sultan directed the government from 1718 to 1730, a period referred to as the Tulip Era. Ahmed III cultivated good relations with France, doubtless in view of Russia's menacing attitude, he afforded refuge in Ottoman territory to Charles XII of Sweden after the Swedish defeat at the hands of Peter I of Russia in the Battle of Poltava of 1709. In 1710 Charles XII convinced Sultan Ahmed III to declare war against Russia, the Ottoman forces under Baltacı Mehmet Pasha won a major victory at the Battle of Prut. In the aftermath, Russia returned Azov back to the Ottomans, agreed to demolish the fortress of Taganrog and others in the area, to stop interfering in the affairs of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Forced against his will into war with Russia, Ahmed III came nearer than any Ottoman sovereign before or since to breaking the power of his northern rival, whose armies his grand vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha succeeded in surrounding at the Pruth River Campaign in 1711. The subsequent Ottoman victories against Russia enabled the Ottoman Empire to advance to Moscow, had the Sultan wished. However, this was halted as a report reached Istanbul that the Safavids were invading the Ottoman Empire, causing a period of panic, turning the Sultan's attention away from Russia. Sultan Ahmed III had become unpopular by reason of the excessive pomp and costly luxury in which he and his principal officers indulged. Ahmed voluntarily led his nephew Mahmud I to the seat of sovereignty and paid allegiance to him as Sultan of the Empire, he retired to the Kafes occupied by Mahmud and died at Topkapı Palace after six years of confinement. Ahmed III's twenty-seven year reign was successful; the recovery of Azov and the Morea, the conquest of part of Persia, managed to counterbalance the Balkan territory ceded to the Habsburg Monarchy through the Treaty of Passarowitz, after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18.
In 1716, he sent an army of 33,000 men to capture Corfu from the Republic of Venice but that expedition failed, Ahmed III left the finances of the Ottoman Empire in a flourishing condition, which had remarkably been obtained without excessive taxation or extortion procedures. He was a cultivated patron of literature and art, it was in his time that the first printing press authorized to use the Arabic or Turkish languages was set up in Istanbul, operated by Ibrahim Muteferrika, it was in this reign that an important change in the government of the Danubian Principalities was introduced: the Porte had appointed Hospodars native Moldavian and Wallachian boyars, to administer those provinces. The Phanariotes constituted a kind of Dhimmi nobility, which supplied the Porte with functionaries in many important departments of the state. In the year 1712, the Mughal Emperor Jahandar Shah, a grandson of Aurangzeb sent gifts to the Ottoman Sultan Ahmad III and referred to himself as the Ottoman Sultan's devoted admirer.
The Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar a grandson of Aurangzeb, is known to have sent a letter to the Ottomans but this time it was received by the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damad Ibrahim Pasha providing a graphic description of the efforts of the Mughal commander Syed Hassan Ali Khan Barha against the Rajput and Maratha rebellion. ConsortsEmetullah Kadın.
Tulip period
The Tulip Period or Tulip Era is a period in Ottoman history from the Treaty of Passarowitz on 21 July 1718 to the Patrona Halil Revolt on 28 September 1730. This was a peaceful period, during which the Ottoman Empire began to orient itself towards Europe; the name of the period derives from the tulip craze among the Ottoman court society. Cultivating this culturally ambiguous emblem had become a celebrated practice; the Tulip Period illustrated the conflicts brought by early modern consumer culture and was a shared material symbolism. During this period the elite and high-class society of the Ottoman period had established an immense fondness for the tulip, which were utilized in various occasions. Tulips defined privilege, both in terms of goods and leisure time. Under the guidance of Sultan Ahmed III’s son-in-law, Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha, the Ottoman Empire embarked on new policies and programs during this period, which established the first Ottoman language printing press during the 1720s, promoted commerce and industry.
The Grand Vizier was concerned with improving trade relations and enhancing commercial revenues, which would help to explain the return to gardens and the more public style of the Ottoman court during this period. The Grand Vizier was himself fond of tulip bulbs, setting an example for Istanbul’s elite who started to cherish the tulip’s endless variety in paint and celebrate its seasonality as well; the Ottoman standard of dress and its commodity culture incorporated their passion for the tulip. Within Istanbul, one could find tulips from the flower markets to the plastic arts to silks and textiles. Tulip bulbs could be found everywhere. Therefore, the tulip is a symbol with mythical appeal, which can be found from Ottoman palaces to their clothing, which sustains a memory of the Ottoman Empire’s social past; the tulip can be seen as a romantic monument representing the wealthy and elite, the fragility of despotic rule. The Tulip period saw a flowering of arts and architecture; the style of architecture and decoration became more elaborate, being influenced by the Baroque period in movement.
A classic example is the Fountain of Ahmed III in front of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The architectural style is a fusion of classical Islamic elements with baroque European ones, making it into distinct Ottoman architecture of the 18th century; the tulip was praised in poetry and motifs used in paintings. To this day in modern Turkey the tulip is still considered the embodiment of beauty. Turkish Airlines decorates its planes with a painting of a tulip on its fuselage. Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha was the Grand Vizier of the Empire. Abdulcelil Levni – an outstanding miniature painter who began to work in Edirne to Istanbul where he studied painting and became the court painter where the Ottoman tradition of miniature albums was revived; these albums that Levni painted were called Tulip albums which mirrored the structure of the states itself, ranking distinguished members of the regime according to horticultural achievements. Tulip prices began to rise in the last decades of the 17th century and peaked in 1726–1727 before state intervention.
This reflected the demand for the inflated value of the rare bulbs and escalating demands for flowers in the elite’s palaces and gardens. Tulip mania demonstrated the state's power to regulate the economy by increasing the prices for bulbs. Courtiers at the time forwarded a petition to denounce the practice of flower sellers, whom they perceived to be taking advantage of the elite by raising the prices of the bulbs; this led to the process of issuing inventories of flowers and price lists to the judge of Istanbul for enforcement. Tulip mania – during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century Derinsular.com – During and After the Tulip Era Enfal.de – Lale Devri Encyclopædia Britannica Online – Abdülcelil Levnî Yılmaz, Nalan. Ottoman Studies Online – Levni, one of the last Ottoman miniaturists Abdulcelil Levni Culture of the Ottoman Empire Jean-Baptiste van Mour Salzmann, Ariel. 2000. "The Age of Tulips Confluence and Conflict in Early Modern Consumer Culture." In Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922.
Albany State University of New York Press, pp. 83–106. Tulip Era Architecture – Fountain of Ahmed III
Charles XII of Sweden
Charles XII, sometimes Carl or Latinized to Carolus Rex, was the King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of a branch line of the House of Wittelsbach. Charles was the only surviving son of Ulrika Eleonora the Elder, he assumed power, at the age of fifteen. In 1700, a triple alliance of Denmark–Norway, Saxony–Poland–Lithuania and Russia launched a threefold attack on the Swedish protectorate of Holstein-Gottorp and provinces of Livonia and Ingria, aiming to draw advantage as the Swedish Empire was unaligned and ruled by a young and inexperienced king, thus initiating the Great Northern War. Leading the Swedish army against the alliance Charles won multiple victories despite being significantly outnumbered. A major victory over a Russian army some three times the size in 1700 at the Battle of Narva compelled Peter the Great to sue for peace which Charles rejected. By 1706 Charles, now 24 years old, had forced all of his foes into submission including, in that year, a decisively devastating victory by Swedish forces under general Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld over a combined army of Saxony and Russia at the Battle of Fraustadt.
Russia was now the sole remaining hostile power. Charles' subsequent march on Moscow met with initial success as victory followed victory, the most significant of, the Battle of Holowczyn where the smaller Swedish army routed a Russian army twice the size; the campaign ended with disaster when the Swedish army suffered heavy losses to a Russian force more than twice its size at Poltava. Charles had been incapacitated by a wound prior to the battle; the defeat was followed by the Surrender at Perevolochna. Charles spent the following years in exile in the Ottoman Empire before returning to lead an assault on Norway, trying to evict the Danish king from the war once more in order to aim all his forces at the Russians. Two campaigns met with frustration and ultimate failure, concluding with his death at the Siege of Fredriksten in 1718. At the time, most of the Swedish Empire was under foreign military occupation, though Sweden itself was still free; this situation was formalized, albeit moderated in the subsequent Treaty of Nystad.
The result was the end of the Swedish Empire, of its organized absolute monarchy and war machine, commencing a parliamentary government unique for continental Europe, which would last for half a century until royal autocracy was restored by Gustav III. Charles was an exceptionally skilled military leader and tactician as well as an able politician, credited with introducing important tax and legal reforms; as for his famous reluctance towards peace efforts, he is quoted by Voltaire as saying upon the outbreak of the war. With the war consuming more than half his life and nearly all his reign, he never married and fathered no children, he was succeeded by his sister Ulrika Eleonora, who in turn was coerced to hand over all substantial powers to the Riksdag of the Estates and opted to surrender the throne to her husband, who became King Frederick I of Sweden. Charles, like all kings, was styled by a royal title, which combined all his titles into one single phrase; this was: We Charles, by the Grace of God King of Sweden, the Goths and the Vends, Grand Prince of Finland, Duke of Scania, Estonia and Karelia, Lord of Ingria, Duke of Bremen and Pomerania, Prince of Rügen and Lord of Wismar, Count Palatine by the Rhine, Duke in Bavaria, Count of Zweibrücken–Kleeburg, as well as Duke of Jülich and Berg, Count of Veldenz and Ravensberg and Lord of Ravenstein.
The fact that Charles was crowned as Charles XII does not mean that he was the 12th king of Sweden by that name. Swedish kings Erik XIV and Charles IX gave themselves numerals after studying a mythological history of Sweden, he was the 6th King Charles. The non-mathematical numbering tradition continues with the current King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, being counted as the equivalent of Charles XVI. Around 1700, the monarchs of Denmark–Norway and Russia united in an alliance against Sweden through the efforts of Johann Reinhold Patkul, a Livonian nobleman who turned traitor when the "great reduction" of Charles XI in 1680 stripped much of the nobility of lands and properties. In late 1699 Charles sent a minor detachment to reinforce his brother-in-law Duke Frederick IV of Holstein-Gottorp, attacked by Danish forces the following year. A Saxon army invaded Swedish Livonia and in February 1700 invested Riga, the most populous city of the Swedish Empire. Russia declared war, but stopped short of an attack on Swedish Ingria until September 1700.
Charles's first campaign was against Denmark–Norway, ruled by his cousin Frederick IV of Denmark, For this campaign Charles secured the support of England and the Netherlands, both maritime powers concerned with Denmark's threats to close the Sound. Leading a force of 8,000 and 43 ships in an invasion of Zealand, Charles compelled the Danes to submit to the Peace of Travendal in August 1700, which indemnified Holstein. Having forced Denmark–Norway to make peace within months, King Charles turned his attention upon the two other powerful neighbors, King August II and Peter the Great of Russia, who had entered the war against him on the same day that Denmark came to terms. Russia had opened their part of the war by inv
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ahmed III.". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 431.
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